But enough are found elsewhere, besides those already given. Pliny the elder quotes the words of Varro, that a Roman knight, under an attack of gout, anointed his limbs with poison, and lost all sensation along with the acuteness of his torment. He also distinguishes the different kinds of pain so intolerable as to induce the commission of suicide; and he calls nature compassionate, for having devised poisonous products of the earth to aid the escape of mankind from violence and misery.* The author has heard of a person who, from excruciating pains in the head, confirmed his sentiments by attempting suicide thrice at different intervals, and always ineffectually. Pliny the younger relates, that his friend Corellius Rufus announced intended suicide at 67 years of age, from preferring death to the distress of a consuming malady in survivance. He was not to be deterred by the remonstrances of numerous affectionate relatives, and pertinaciously refused sustenance until he expired. He likewise gives an instance of a woman throwing herself into a lake along with her husband, whom she counselled to suicide on account of an incurable distemper.†

Old age, pain, and infirmity, therefore, sometimes offer too formidable an aspect to be contemplated with corresponding fortitude and resignation. But

* Pliny Historia Naturalis, lib. xxv. § 7.-Lib. ii. § 63, Quin et venena nostri misertam instituisse credi potest. + Pliny Epistolæ, lib. i. Epist. 12.-Lib. vi. Ep. 24.

unless for the evils of life, it is seldom that mankind admit they have lived long enough. As the Grecian philosopher of old, they reject the office of a friendly hand, desiring the cessation of pain, but not the close of existence. Nevertheless, according to Mela and Pliny the elder, the ancient Northerns cheerfully leaped off a certain rock into the sea, rather from being satiated with life than weary of it.* In Sweden, the aged and incurable are said to have directed their friends to carry them to rocks overhanging the sea, still pointed out by the name of Odin's Hall, from whence they cast themselves headlong among the waves. It was thought inexpedient by the Heruli, an ancient tribe dwelling beyond the Ister, that the aged should survive in disease or imbecillity; and they seem to have been compelled to promote their own death, if not actually to destroy themselves.‡

The Indian Rajah, perhaps, is far from a solitary example in the modern history of various countries.

Pomponius Mela de Situ Orbis, cap. 5.-Pliny Historia Naturalis, lib. iv. cap. 26. The former seems to allot this custom to the most western Scythians, known by the name of Hyperboreans. But their abode has been much contested. "Habitant lucos silvasque et ubi eos vivendi satietas, magis quam tædium vitæ cepit, hilares redimiti sertis semetipsi in pelagus ex certa rupe precipites dant. Id eis funus eximium est.”—Bartholinus Antiquitates Danicæ, p. 384.

+ Sir William Temple, Miscellanea, Part ii. Essay 3. ch. 4. Works, vol. i. p. 216, in folio.

+ Procopius de Bello Getico, lib. ii. cap. 14.

Etoile, in his Journal of contemporary affairs, relates, that Francis de Saignes, a councillor of parliament, labouring under extreme distress, and feeling himself near the close of life, arose before daybreak, and mounting his mule, rode to the banks of the river Seine, into which he threw himself and was drowned, in the year 1578. But, on pretence of his being in a fever, he was nevertheless solemnly interred in consecrated ground, with the assistance, among others, of the President de Thou, whose son he had constituted his heir.*

§3. Compulsory Suicide.-The preceding remarks may suitably introduce us, as an interlude, to a few illustrations of compulsory suicide, or of persons unwilling to die being compelled to become their own destroyers, a cruel and pitiable fate. For although we may wean ourselves from life, and bring our mind to that condition as admits the contemplation of death without affright, or we are even glad to seek a final refuge in it from intolerable evils, it is an awful prospect to those who are endeared by enjoyments to existence.

But ascending to history for examples, we are opposed by the imperfections and obscurities inseparable from the wreck of time; we meet with breaches and discordance, and are obliged to support our theories by analogies where it would be desirable to

Etoile Journal de Choses Memorables, tom. i. p. 38.

have facts. Time is a grand destroyer; yet sometimes light and trifling matters are upborne by the stream, while those that are weighty and important sink irrecoverably, and perish from remembrance. If in modern æras remarkable aberrations from the ordinary course of things be witnessed, and if corresponding deviations be referred, though less explicitly, to remoter ages, we shall not be mistaken in blending them together to obtain a sufficient guide to truth. All the mass of history is framed of fragments, or compounded from the gleanings which have been saved from oblivion.

In the interior of Africa there is a kingdom called Eyeo, governed by a prince of absolute power; to whom, nevertheless, his subjects, if dissatisfied, are entitled to send a deputation, signifying that it is now time for him to repose from the cares of state. He thanks them for the message, and retiring, directs his women to strangle him. About the year 1774, however, the wonted mission having reached the reigning monarch, he had courage to withstand its purpose, replying that he was resolved yet to watch for the benefit of his people; and thus saving his own life, like the king of the country surrounding Sofala, emancipated his successors from a barbarous custom.* It is still better ascertained, that in the year 1815, a chief dependent on another

* The name of this kingdom does not seem to be satisfactorily explained. Dalzel, History of Dahomy, p. 12, 156.

African potentate, the king of Ashantee, having rendered himself obnoxious to the people, they commanded him to kill himself. He did so after obtaining a respite for a few weeks, during which similar preparations were made for his exit, as practised at the interment of distinguished personages.

Neither of these is said to have any relation to religious suicide, in obedience to the ordinances, or to appease the wrath of the divinity. But Diodorus, treating of Ethiopia, relates this most singular custom as implicating the death of the kings. The priests at Meroe, in the service of the gods, being of the highest authority, sent a messenger to the sovereign, ordering him to put himself to death; for such they affirmed was the divine pleasure, which no mortal dared to dispute. Some other reasons were given which credulity would enforce, and which proved effectual. Diodorus proceeds to explain the overthrow of this ecclesiastical tyranny, which in early ages subsisted without restraint or force of arms, but merely from the influence of superstition, until Ergamenes, one of their kings, skilled in the learning and philosophy of the Greeks, ventured to hold it in contempt. With spirit becoming his royal dignity, he marched with a band of military to a strong place, where the Golden Temple of the Ethiopians was situated, and killing all the priests, instituted new ceremonies on the

*Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 252, 253.